CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS for AAA PANEL ON EXPERIMENTAL ETHNOGRAPHIC FILMMAKING AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Anthropologists as Filmmakers and Photographers: Experimental Trends in Visual Anthropology and Visual Ethnography

Organizer/Chairperson: Andrea Heckman

Camera. Lights. Action. Not an academic sound to our ears? Using cameras for ethnographic field notes and analysis is a methodology utilized by visual anthropologists as long ago as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson when they collected large quantities of visual data on Balinese culture and practices. In 1987, the Society for Visual Anthropology was created to encourage the use of photography, films, video, and multi-media as valuable, legitimate methods for fieldwork, not limited as only illustrations for papers. While some anthropologists have not acknowledged visual media as a viable methodological approach, many other ethnographers have recognized the communicative power of visual representation for collecting data, analysis, and accurate presentation of and by those studied.

This panel will present new experimental approaches using film and photography for ethnographic research, analysis, and conclusions including innovations in the formats of the photo essay and documentary film work. The presentations will include global ethnographies improved upon by video clips, digital photography, and social media, and reflexive processual commentary by the researchers. Controversies will be investigated concerning the nature of research questions, interview techniques, cultural intrusion, and the social ethics of creating visual media, and consideration of the final research products, which are then transferred from one culture to inform another. The presentations will be followed by discussion in an interactive format.

If you are interested in participating in this panel for 2013 AAA in Chicago contact Andrea Heckman ASAP and submit a 250-word abstract. Presenters must be AAA members.  Participation will be limited to five presentations.

Andreaheckman333@gmail.com